"That in the summer of the year of 1798 he inoculated a great
number of the men belonging to the regiment, and that among them
he found eleven who, from having lived in dairies, had gone
through the cow-pox. That all of them resisted the smallpox
except one, but that on making the most rigid and scrupulous
enquiry at the farm in Gloucestershire, where the man said he
lived when he had the disease, and among those with whom, at the
same time, he declared he had associated, and particularly of a
person in the parish, whom he said had dressed his fingers, it
most clearly appeared that he aimed at an imposition, and that he
never had been affected with the cow-pox." [Footnote: The public
cannot be too much upon their guard respecting persons of this
description.] Mr. Tierny remarks that the arms of many who were
inoculated after having had the cow-pox inflamed very quickly,
and that in several a little ichorous fluid was formed.
Mr. Cline, who in July last was so obliging at my request as to
try the efficacy of the cow-pox virus, was kind enough to give me
a letter on the result of it, from which the following is an
extract:
"My DEAR SIR:
"The cow-pox experiment has succeeded admirably. The child
sickened on the seventh day, and the fever, which was moderate,
subsided on the eleventh. The inflammation arising from the
insertion of the virus extended to about four inches in diameter,
and then gradually subsided, without having been attended with
pain or other inconvenience. There were no eruptions.
"I have since inoculated him with smallpox matter in three
places, which were slightly inflamed on the third day, and then
subsided.
"Dr. Lister, who was formerly physician to the Smallpox Hospital,
attended the child with me, and he is convinced that it is not
possible to give him the smallpox. I think the substituting the
cow-pox poison for the smallpox promises to be one of the
greatest improvements that has ever been made in medicine; and
the more I think on the subject, the more I am impressed with its
importance.
"With great esteem
"I am, etc., "HENRY CLINE.
"Lincoln's Inn Fields, August 2, 1798."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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